Quotes About Deception

Clotilde, Miss Marple thought, was certainly no Ophelia, but she would have made a magnificent Clytemnestra---she could have stabbed a husband in his bath with exultation. But since she had never had a husband, that solution wouldn't do. Miss Marple could not see her murdering anyone else but a husband---and there had been no Agamemnon in this house.

It's full of festering poison, this place, and it looks as peaceful and as innocent as the Garden of Eden." "Even there," said Owen drily, "there was one serpent.

My good Japp, is it possible that you throw the mud in my eyes? I know well enough that it is the Chinaman you suspect. But you are so artful. You want me to help you—and yet you drag the red kipper across the trail.

No," said Tuppence thoughtfully, "he didn't believe it. That's the curious part about speaking the truth. No one does believe it.

Miss Marple is a white-haired old lady with a gentle, appealing manner—Miss Wetherby is a mixture of vinegar and gush. Of the two Miss Marple is much the more dangerous.

Poirot said "you will find,M.le docteur,if you have much to do with cases of this kind,that they all resemble each other in one thing." "what is that?" I asked curiously "everyone concerned in them has something to hide

I should have known when I first saw that picture. For it is a very remarkable picture. It is the picture of a murderess painted by her victim-it is the picture of a girl watching her lover dies.

It's so difficult, isn't it, to get to know people when there is a murder? And quite impossible to have any really intellectual conversation.

Shaitana was a man who prided himself on his Mephistophelian attitude to life. He was a man of great vanity. He was also a stupid man-that's why he is dead.

Mary Jordan did not die naturally. It was one of us, I think I know which one.

Miss Marple,' said Sir Henry, "you frighten me. I hope you will never wish to remove me. Your plans would be too good.

Because of his face." "His face? But—" "Yes, I know what you're going to say. It's a sinister face. That's just it. No man with a face like that could be really sinister. It must be a colossal joke on the part of Nature.

He's like all the rest of these people; they make inflammatory speeches of enormous length, solely for political purposes, and then wish they hadn't.

The eye is diverted from the real business, it is caught by the spectacular action that means nothing--nothing at all.

That's all right then. But a lot of people do tell lies.' I accepted this undeniable statement of fact in silence.

It was borne in upon her audience that the outside of Jane's charming head was distinctly superior to the inside.

The very simple-minded have often the genius to commit an uncomplicated crime and then leave it alone.

Miss Williams said: "I see now why you said that it might be better if she had never known. All the same, I

The case was not quite satisfactory to me. All along I was strongly under the impression that we were dealing with a cold-blooded and premeditated crime committed by someone who had contented themselves (very cleverly) with using Monsieur Renauld's own plans for throwing the police off the track. The great criminal (as you may remember my remarking to you once) is always supremely simple." -- Hercule Poirot

When you look your most innocent is when you are up to something.' Revolving

He went out of the compartment and returned a few moments later with a small spirit stove and a pair of curling tongs. "I use them for the moustaches," he said, referring to the latter.

Only to those who don't know you–who are taken in by your delusive appearance of meekness and decorum.' 'I like your long words.' 'All out of crossword puzzles.' 'So educative.

M. Poirot, almost certainly the criminal; the only man on board who could create a psychological moment.

words, ingeniously used, will serve to mask the ugliness of naked facts.